Governance Strategies for Improving Flood Resilience in the Face of Climate Change

TLDR

Flooding is the most common natural disaster, causing many casualties and substantial economic damage, and achieving flood resilience requires countries to develop capacities to resist, absorb, recover, transform, and adapt. The study identifies six governance strategies—diversifying risk management approaches, aligning them to reduce fragmentation, engaging public and private actors, establishing flexible yet certain formal rules, ensuring adequate financial and other resources, and adopting normative principles addressing distributional effects—to enhance flood resilience. International comparative research shows that these six governance strategies improve flood resilience across diverse contexts and offer transferable lessons for broader climate adaptation governance.

Abstract

Flooding is the most common of all natural disasters and accounts for large numbers of casualties and a high amount of economic damage worldwide. To be ‘flood resilient’, countries should have sufficient capacity to resist, the capacity to absorb and recover, and the capacity to transform and adapt. Based on international comparative research, we conclude that six key governance strategies will enhance ‘flood resilience’ and will secure the necessary capacities. These strategies pertain to: (i) the diversification of flood risk management approaches; (ii) the alignment of flood risk management approaches to overcome fragmentation; (iii) the involvement, cooperation, and alignment of both public and private actors in flood risk management; (iv) the presence of adequate formal rules that balance legal certainty and flexibility; (v) the assurance of sufficient financial and other types of resources; (vi) the adoption of normative principles that adequately deal with distributional effects. These governance strategies appear to be relevant across different physical and institutional contexts. The findings may also hold valuable lessons for the governance of climate adaptation more generally.